


you're a human (in my vision)

by grinsekaetzchen



Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Study, M/M, Minor Violence, Post-Season/Series 01, Pre-Slash, Project Blackwing (Dirk Gently)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-09
Updated: 2017-11-09
Packaged: 2019-01-31 06:09:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12675957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grinsekaetzchen/pseuds/grinsekaetzchen
Summary: Dreams are a bit like the universe, Dirk thinks as he’s clenching his eyes shut against the pain radiating through his body. They’re indecipherable and complicated right until they’re somehow not, until one last missing puzzle piece falls into place, the giant machine behind all of it locking down and coming to life. Or something like that; Dirk is presently a little distracted, but mostly he’s never been good at not mixing his metaphors.





	you're a human (in my vision)

**Author's Note:**

> Somehow, I fell into this fandom within two weeks and instantly wanted to write fic? After not having written fic for months?? Anyway, I hope you like it! 
> 
> The title is from "Collision" by Hayden Calnin.

“What did you miss the most?”

“Really, Todd, this is a stupid question on two levels at least.” Dirk turns his head, staring at Todd, sitting at the foot of the bed. He’s wearing a Mexican Funeral shirt. Dirk wishes he still had his.

“It is?” Todd asks. His eyes are a little hollow. Dirk doesn’t like it.

“Yes, of course it is. First of all, that question is just rude. It’s rude to ask me that knowing fully well that I can’t have what it is that I’m missing, if I even am missing something, which, of course I am, I’m only human or at least mostly human. Human where it counts, I would say. Actually, I might be extra human, seeing as I’ve got – well, some sort of skills. That’s what they’re trying to find out, isn’t it, what it is that I can do and – anyway, that’s only part of why this question is terrible.”

“Right,” Todd says. He’s sitting too calmly and he’s neither rolling his eyes nor looking amusedly as he follows Dirk’s rant. Dirk shifts on the bed, tempted to pull his knees close to his chest. It doesn’t work somehow. “What’s the second part?”

“Hm?” Dirk stops staring at the part of Todd’s face that has an interesting looking shadow on it. It’s weird: the last time he saw Todd, his face had been clear of any shadows. The universe must have decided to brand him somehow, make him remarkable. Except, no, Todd was already remarkable, Dirk is pretty sure. He’s got a good feeling about this. A hunch, if he were to say so.

He doesn’t.

“You said that it’s a stupid question on two levels. What’s the second?”

“Oh, now is when you decide to be smart suddenly and not when you were asking the question.” Dirk sighs too loudly. Todd doesn’t say anything, leaving Dirk no other chance than to fill the silence by saying, “The question was phrased in the wrong tense. Not ‘what did you miss the most’, but ‘what _do_ you miss the most’. I’m still here after all.”

As soon as Dirk says it, Todd disappears. It takes Dirk longer to wake up.

It seems as if he’s even alone in his dreams now.

 

Dreams are a bit like the universe, Dirk thinks as he’s clenching his eyes shut against the pain radiating through his body. They’re indecipherable and complicated right until they’re somehow not, until one last missing puzzle piece falls into place, the giant machine behind all of it locking down and coming to life. Or something like that; Dirk is presently a little distracted, but mostly he’s never been good at not mixing his metaphors.

In any case, dreaming is like the universe, or, maybe, more like a hunch that the universe sends Dirk (that was back when he was still on speaking terms with the universe when he – when he listened to it, when it talked to him - now things are slightly more complicated. One might say their relationship is on the rocks and, see, Dirk does know idioms and – and metaphors take that.)

Or it might be the other way around, actually: A hunch feels a lot like dreaming, like being caught in the middle of the fog and wandering around until suddenly a light flares up in the distance, propelling Dirk towards it, parting the fog slowly. Fog always has a dream-like quality to it, making everything seem hazy and – Dirk feels dizzy.

It takes him everything to open his eyes, stare at the two-way mirror in front of him defiantly and hold onto his thoughts. Another shock sears through him and he bites his cheek. He should probably be able to taste blood, but then again, his body is pre-occupied with feeling pain and nothing else, so he’ll give his taste receptors some time to catch up.

Now, where was he?

Right, dreaming.

 

Once Dirk makes the mistake of trying to touch Todd in a dream. Just a brushing of his fingers against Todd’s shoulder, the beginning of a hug maybe.

It happened in one of the early dreams, the ones where Dirk was just getting the hang of figuring out when it was a dream version of Todd and when it was the real Todd (never, was the answer to that), when he suddenly thought about being closer to Todd. Todd was standing at the other side of the room, staring at Dirk and Dirk just wanted – something. Comfort, he thinks later. Comfort in the form of a hug or a pat on the back or even just a handshake.

And why shouldn’t he have got that? It was his dream, his subconscious making up Todd to pass the time or to entertain him in his dreams when his days were – different. It was his right to be able to do anything in his dreams, Dirk thought, so he walked over to Todd, who stayed where he was, and put his hand out.

The walls of the dream came down around him so fast, Dirk made the mistake of clutching onto Todd’s shoulder. The room was being destroyed by something invisible around him, the bed breaking into pieces, the shelf with his sneakers on it creaking and then giving out and taking the rest of the wall with it.

Dirk stopped looking around then, focusing on Todd instead and watching as Todd’s face fell off, revealing a darkness so black that Dirk screamed himself awake.

He doesn’t try it again, blocks the whole thing from his memory and just keeps the part where Todd’s shirt felt soft to touch for the few seconds that the dream allowed it.

 

“What does a hunch feel like?” Todd asks, and this is a better version of Todd, a realer one. He’s pacing around the room this time, looking for some way out, while Dirk is leaning against the wall behind his bed.

“Not what, but _where_ do I feel a hunch,” Dirk corrects him. Todd interrupts his search for a way out (Is he knocking on the walls? What, does he expect that they’re hollow?) to turn around and shoot Dirk an unimpressed look. Dirk beams at him.

“Fine, where then?” Todd rolls his eyes, going back to whatever it is he’s doing. Dirk is fairly sure that he’s petting the walls now, but if it makes Todd happy he can do whatever he likes.

“In my left pinkie finger. Sometimes my left big toe. Left, generally, though.”

Todd stops his caressing of the walls. “Is that a lie?”

“Maybe.”

“Why are you lying?”

“Oh, yes, great idea, Todd! Really, you do have the most creative ideas sometimes: Let’s make a game out of it,” Dirk grins, clapping his hands once. “So, the question is: Why are you lying? These are your possible answers. Are you ready, Todd?” Todd doesn’t say anything. “Todd, are you ready?”

Todd is shaking his head slightly, but his lips are doing that thing where he’s pretending not to smile and Dirk wants to capture that on the walls – light them up with something (he’s never seen walls so white and so dark and depressing at the same time). “Yes, okay, what are my options?”

“Option A: I am lying because it gives me something to do.” Dirk pauses for dramatic effect, but Todd just motions for him to get on with it. He wouldn’t make a very entertaining game show contestant, good that he has Dirk to help him get better at this.

“Option B: I am lying because I don’t know the answer to that question and it’s easier to lie than to first define what a hunch is, that is, if it even _is_ definable, and then try and locate it on top of everything.”

Todd is frowning now. Good, the question shouldn’t be easy to answer.

“Option C: I am lying because this is a dream.”

“B,” Todd says at once.

“Wrong!” Dirk yells, getting up on his bed and standing there. Like a pirate on a ship. Or a king. Maybe just like a very excited person.

Todd frowns some more. “What was the right answer then?”

“All of the above,” Dirk says, and just like that the glee from before leaves him and he plops back down on the bed, just that he can’t remember making that a conscious choice. He only knows that somehow his vantage point has changed, and Todd is no longer small, but slightly more on eye level with Dirk, if not above it.

He hates that about dreaming: The parts in-between always get muddled.

“You won,” Todd smiles, but it looks sad.

Dirk thinks he understands: Winning has never felt worse.

 

Dirk knows he’s not psychic. He is very, very sure of that fact. That doesn’t stop everyone else from assuming that he’s simply lying. Which is, quite frankly, rude. Why do people continuously assume he’s lying when the worst thing’s he’s done is omit some truths along the way? More often than not, he’s completely honest to the people he meets and then they think he’s being rude. It’s a lose-lose situation.

Still, people think he’s psychic. Which is why the scientist in front of him is trying to get him to figure out what object she has placed in a sealed, black box. Dirk has no idea. The universe doesn’t care for banalities like that.

“You could guess what I drew on a paper napkin,” Todd says from somewhere. For a moment, Dirk freezes. Dreaming people is one thing, hallucinating them is quite another. But Todd is nowhere to be seen (disappointment settles in the bottom of Dirk’s stomach), his voice confined to a memory.

True, Dirk answers himself, but that was different. The universe cared about Todd or, at least, made Dirk care about Todd, made everything that had to with him into a hunch, into something that it pushed and pulled Dirk to. Not that Dirk wouldn’t have cared about Todd otherwise, he’s fairly certain he couldn’t have ever seen Todd and thought anything else but “fascinating”.

“Project Icarus, what’s in the box,” the scientist says, and Dirk hates himself a little for flinching. The name should mean nothing by now, should just be another thing that they say here that’s not true, that was never true. He’s not psychic and he’s not Project Icarus. He’s just Dirk. Dirk Gently, to be exact, but he’d be over the moon if they’d just recognise his name.

Though, actually, he doesn’t want them to use it. It belongs to him, might be the only thing that’s still left that belongs to him, and they can’t have that.

“An elephant,” he answers carelessly.

“In this box?” The scientist seems stumped for a second, looking at the tiny box in the middle of the table.

“Yes.”

“No.”

Dirk shrugs. “I don’t know how often I can repeat that I’m not psychic. You know, maybe you should get your hearing checked out, I hear that sometimes people get –“

They take him away and after, his body is sore from the electroshocks. He closes his eyes and hopes for good dreams.

 

“I would really love to have proper clothes,” Dirk says, tugging at the ugly and, more importantly, uncomfortable jumpsuit he’s in.

“You don’t own any proper clothes,” Todd says. This time, he’s lying next to Dirk, face to face with him and so close that when he exhales, Dirk can feel his breath somewhere on his chin. If he could stay here forever, he probably would.

“Excuse me, I only own proper clothes.”

“You have a bright yellow jacket that you wear with everything, what is proper about that?” Todd smiles, a real smile, amused and without his guard up. Dirk wants to touch him, but he keeps his hands to himself. He can feel Todd breathing, that’s enough.

“I also have a lime green jacket. Both _very_ good purchases. They even give the appearance that they’re rain jackets sometimes.”

“Is that a good thing?”

“Of course, it makes me look prepared for all weather.”

“But they’re not rain jackets.”

“No, definitely not. Gets rather chilly and they tend to stick to me unpleasantly when they do get soaked. It’s all a bit disgusting. But they look great!” Dirk smiles at Todd and Todd smiles back and if this wasn’t a dream, Dirk thinks he would feel so happy, he would burst.

It’s a dream, so the only thing he feels is a slight regret and fear of waking up.

“I miss my jackets,” he says.

“They’re waiting for you,” Todd says.

Dirk wants to say something else, maybe ask something but this is too good a moment to spoil it. He keeps quiet.

 

“The universe and you are _not on speaking terms_?” Friedkin repeats very slowly and very incredulously. Dirk reins in a sigh. This man is truly not gifted with a great intellect.

“Yes, I just said that.”

Friedkin shocks him. Dirk should have been prepared for that, but he wasn’t (stupid, stupid), so he just so manages not to shout, instead gritting his teeth, his body going taut on the chair.

“Listen, you freak, what you’re saying makes no sense.”

“Then just let me go,” Dirk pants. “I’m of no help to you.”

“You will be,” Friedkin says.

This time, Dirk closes his eyes before the next shock.

 

Sometimes the version of Todd that visits Dirk in his dreams is an angry one. Angry and hurt and yelling about how Dirk screwed up his life, how he lied, how he cheated his way into being Todd’s friend and how he deserves none of it.

Dirk is good at knowing the difference between a nightmare and a dream, but is it still a nightmare when all the things Todd is saying are true?

 

If Dirk had a watch (if he were allowed one), he’d be counting the minutes until he was allowed back into his cell. Room. Whatever. Just because it doesn’t have bars doesn’t mean it isn’t a cell. They can pretend all they like and talk about how they just want to check what he can do, want to figure it out. Though, they’ve dropped the act they put on when he was a child: That he’d be allowed out if he complied. Now, they just punish him if he doesn’t. It hurts less than the false hopes from before.

He’s getting off tangent, though (where’s Todd when he needs him to make sense of his thoughts, to break them down, to halt them and give them some kind of shape when Dirk’s brain is whirring out of control): Dirk would be counting down the seconds if he had a watch, just to be able to go to sleep and see Todd.

Most of the time, he will dream of him, so Dirk has just begun expecting that it will happen. What’s a little more disappointment on top of everything else if it gets him through the day? Nothing, exactly.

He probably shouldn’t tell Todd about that, about dreaming of him and talking to him and generally imagining him to be here. Todd might find it strange. It is rather strange, but Dirk is past the point of not allowing himself to think of the only thing, the only person, that makes all of this somewhat bearable.

Todd never has to know.

 

Sometimes Dirk dreams of Todd and Farah breaking him out of his cell, of them rushing him out of there and making sure that no one can get to him anymore.

Those dreams always feel real for too long.

This is why he’s confused when the dream that actually gets him out of his cell starts with Mona. It’s a new dream is Dirk’s first thought, closely followed by: Where is Todd?

Then his thoughts abandon all linear progression: Mona says something about a boy he needs to find, before sending him through all of space. There’s a tugging feeling in his stomach and his heart is racing in his chest and Dirk might be interested if he weren’t sure that this was a dream. The earth is spinning in front of his eyes and maybe this is what true psychics experience when they predict the future. Dirk just feels slightly sick.

He feels sicker when he gets the thought that this might be a new experiment. This might be some sort of strange new task they’re setting him: seeing how long he can last in a spinning environment. His thoughts are spinning with the earth around him, running in circles and Dirk just wants something to hold onto.

He wakes up in the boot of a car (did they drive him somewhere?), except, he can’t truly be awake because the person opening the boot seems to be Todd.

Dirk rolls out of the boot into the grass, grasping at it with his hands for a moment (it feels real, could this -), stumbling to his feet and looking around. He’s on a field somewhere, there’s a creepy looking house in the distance (is his subconscious coming up with cases now?) and there’s a breeze on his face and wet stains on his clothes from something and -

Dirk’s no longer in his cell. Nothing’s white anymore, there’s no fluorescent lighting, there’s sunlight instead and it’s slightly cold. It’s a strange feeling, being outside again and he doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. 

“I’m free,” he yells instead, and then he turns around and there’s Todd in front of him. There’s Todd and Farah and a car behind and woods around them. Todd looks real, looks like he’s an actual person, no hint of an illusion anymore.

Todd looks – overwhelmed. Happy. He doesn’t look like one of the angry versions, not at all, instead he starts jumping up and down and Dirk follows suit and then he reaches out to pull Dirk into a hug.

For a split second, everything inside of Dirk freezes. He can see how this could end: The moment he touches Todd, everything will fall to pieces around him, Blackwing will emerge behind the crumbling scenery and smirk, saying, “We fooled you again”.

But nothing like that happens (and for another second, Dirk wishes he could show Blackwing this thought, just to tell them that he truly isn’t a psychic, and, God, is he glad for that). Instead, Todd’s arms are secure around Dirk, his face is pressed into Dirk’s neck and Dirk can breathe and he can touch (Todd’s sweater is slightly stiff from the cold but still so soft) and his thoughts are somewhere non-reachable, because the only thing that exists right now is the way Todd feels firm in his arms.

Dirk can’t stop grinning.

 

“What did you miss the most?” Todd asks later, much later, when there is time for questions like that again (though, there might always be time for questions like that now).

“You said this in a dream once,” Dirk blurts out. Todd raises his eyebrows. “That sounds creepy, me dreaming about you is – it’s weird? Possibly? Maybe not? Actually, you shouldn’t find it weird, you should be flattered that I value you this much and that I –“

“You dreamt of me?”

Dirk fidgets a little. “Yes.”

“In Blackwing?”

“Well, there wasn’t much else to do.”

“And I asked you what you missed the most in that dream.” Todd’s eyes are bright and happy. Dirk wants to bask in their light. He can, now, he guesses. There’s nothing really stopping him. Not anymore.

“Yes.”

“Did you answer in that dream?”

“No.”

“You’re very monosyllabic, I’m not used to that.” Todd is smiling, teasing.

Dirk smiles back, a little unsure, before saying, “Can’t you guess what I missed the most?” His heart is hammering inside his chest and he pulls his bright red jacket closer around his body.

“You said you were dreaming about me. Did you dream about anyone else?”

“No.” Farah sometimes, but Dirk thinks that’s not what Todd means.

It’s quiet, Todd’s eyes flitting over Dirk and Dirk tries very hard to stay still.

“I missed you, too,” Todd says then, and Dirk can’t help the smile that’s breaking out on his face.

“Good,” he says, and that sets Todd off, bickering about how _obviously_ he would miss him, but there’s still a soft smile tucked in the corner of Todd’s mouth and Dirk knows when he’s just talking about stupid things to distract from more tangible stuff, so Dirk lets him, even argues against him.

He’s glad that he’s got the real Todd back. Dream Todd couldn’t have held a candle to the real one.

“I’m really good with idioms. And metaphors,” he tells Todd apropos of nothing.

Without batting an eye, Todd answers, “No, you’re really not.”

Dirk smiles.

“What,” Todd asks, “what am I missing?”

Dirk ignores him. “You’re _much_ better, you know.”

“Than who? I obviously don’t know. Dirk, I might have missed you, but I didn’t miss you being cryptic about everything.”

Yes, the real Todd is much better than dream Todd. Not that there was ever any competition. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [tumblr](http://hotchocolatenthusiast.tumblr.com/)


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